Loose Ends (The Hammer Commission Book 3)

by John Van Stry

  When Samuel stopped and swore an oath, while crossing himself, Herman squatted lower and scanned the vicinity, both high and low.

  "What is it, Sam?" he asked.

  "They have led us around in a big circle!" Samuel said softly, his own gun out at the ready now.

  "How do you know that?" Herman asked.

  "Take a look yourself."

  Herman moved up then and saw it, the pugmarks joined another trail, a trail that had both his and Samuel's boot prints all over it.

  "Madre de Dios!" Samuel suddenly shouted and started shooting back the way they had come, as fast as he could work the action on his hunting rifle. Herman turned quickly and fired a short burst in the same direction.

  "What?!" Herman asked.

  "I saw one of them! I..." and just then the biggest damn cat Herman had ever seen outside of a zoo suddenly appeared out of the brush from the left and charged Samuel.

  Samuel got off one shot, but Herman wasn't sure it hit, as the puma quickly closed the distance. In his hast to chamber another round, Samuel's gun jammed, and the puma was on him. Herman stepped to his left, to get a clear line of fire and was raising his own weapon to fire on the puma when suddenly he felt something pull at the back of his jacket and a huge paw reached over his shoulder from the left side and ripped his AR right out of his grip flinging it into the woods!

  Herman quickly jumped forward, trying to get away from the puma that was obviously behind him, while Samuel screamed loudly and the puma that was now on him knocked Samuel off his feet and back into the brush.

  Rolling over and scrambling to his feet, Herman could see the second puma, which had attacked him from behind was growling and hissing at him, meanwhile Samuel was still screaming and now there were two more pumas watching him while the one that had tackled Samuel savaged his body.

  Herman was a lot of things, but stupid wasn't one of them. Backing away, he quickly turned and ran, back in the direction he thought that the camp was in, crashing through the underbrush and trying to get away. His only hope was that they were far too interested in Samuel, who he could hear screaming behind him as he fled.

  Then just like that, the screams stopped and something hit him in the side and knocked him to the ground.

  Rolling to his feet, he pulled his pistol, but there was nothing around. So he started running again, but within moments, another puma charged out from behind a tree. He took a wild shot at it, causing it to veer off, as he changed direction as well.

  By the fifth time one of them had appeared from behind a tree or out of the brush and charged him, he suddenly realized that they were herding him away from the camp and deeper into the woods. Stopping, he took a knee and raised his pistol, looking around for the one that had just ducked into the trees after he shot at it. When nothing came, he stood up to move over to one of the trees, figuring he could use the trunk for at least some cover, when he was suddenly struck hard from behind and sent flying, dropping his pistol as he hit the ground.

  Scrambling back to his feet he saw a young man was standing there, scowling at him, naked. He wasn't one of the locals, or a native, he was a white man.

  "You're a very bad man, aren't you, Herman?" the man said to him in English his hands out in front of him, knees bent.

  Herman drew his belt knife, the young man was perhaps a little taller than he was, but he wasn't as heavily built as Herman. Also he was unarmed and nude. Herman smiled, this would be easy.

  "Who are you? Nature boy?" Herman mocked as he closed, "This is not some comic book fantasy!" he laughed and thrusting up low from the hip with the knife in his right hand, Herman lunched forward.

  The young man knocked his hand to the side and punched him, dead center in the chest, knocking the breath out of him, and making him stumble back.

  "I have some questions for you, Herman," the young man said to him.

  "I have nothing to say to you!" Herman growled and bending his knees to come in lower, he charged the young man, keeping the knife close to his hip. He might be stronger than he looked, but Herman had killed over a dozen men using only his knife.

  Almost faster than Herman could follow, the young man dodged to Herman's left, and kicked him in the stomach with enough force to knock him on his butt.

  "Which of the labs has the sample you stole from California?"

  "I will tell you nothing, freak!" Herman said, swearing as he rolled back to his feet and came at the young man again.

  Instead of dodging, the young man collided with him this time, and his left hand seized Herman's wrist with a grip too strong for Herman to break. Head butting him, Herman momentarily saw stars; it was like hitting a wooden plank!

  He bent over then in pain, as he took a knee to the groin, and suddenly his arm was wrenched violently around behind him, his wrist twisted as it was forced up, a thumb finding the pressure point and forcing his hand open as he gasped in pain and dropped the knife.

  "Which building, Herman?" the young man whispered in his ear, and then Herman found himself being picked up off the ground, and hurled into a tree! Gasping in pain as he slid down to the ground, he saw it then, his pistol. It was laying just a couple of feet away.

  Herman looked up at the young man who was standing there, looking down at him.

  "Which building?" the young man growled.

  "The two new ones, closest to the guard tower!" Herman yelled, grabbing his arm to make it look like he was in pain.

  "See? That wasn't hard, was it, Herman?" the young man said in a mocking voice.

  Herman rolled away from the tree then, rolling over the pistol and grabbing it as he did, then coming up he shot the young man once, twice, then a third time in the chest.

  But he didn't go down, instead he lunged forward and dropped to his knees, one on Herman's arm, the other on Herman's chest as he seized the pistol and tore it out of Herman's grasp as if Herman was no more than a child.

  But worse than that, his chest was right in front of Herman's face, less than a foot away, and as he watched, all three bullets popped out of the young man's chest, one after the other, covered in blood, and landed on Herman's jacket, the bloody wounds sealing before his eyes.

  "Damn, they're right, that does sting," the young man said and taking the pistol he put it to Herman's forehead.

  "One last question, Herman, what is the combination to get inside the lab?"

  "What, what are you?" Herman asked, looking up from the wounds into the young man's face. Herman shivered, for the first time, in a long long time, he was scared, he knew fear. This man, this thing, whatever it was, it wasn't human.

  "I'm agent Michael Sykes, of the FBI. Now, answer the question."

  "FBI?" Herman looked at him, then laughed! It was the FBI! They couldn't kill him! They couldn't even arrest him! He was saved!

  "This isn't America, freak!" Herman laughed, "You can't arrest me!"

  Michael sighed and put the gun to Herman's head.

  "You're right, this isn't America," Michael said, thinking about the woman Herman had kneecapped, the researcher he shot in the head for no reason, the others Herman had killed there and who the hell knew where else as his finger tightened on the trigger.

  "Wait! What are you doing! No! St...."

  * * *

  "Is he?" Jess asked Michael as he padded up to her and Gail. He'd told Clem to drag the guide down closer to the installation, so that when he regained consciousness he'd be able to crawl back and get treated.

  Michael sighed and nodded, "Yes, I shot him in the head. Twice."

  "I don't think our father is going to be very happy with you," Gail told him.

  Michael shrugged, "I'll deal with it. That man was scum; he killed a lot of innocent people, and would have killed a lot more."

  "Let's head back to our camp, and meet up with Clem," Jess said, coming up and rubbing against his side.

  Michael nodded, "Sure. At least the rain's stopped."

  "For now," Jess agreed.

  It didn't
take long to get back to their makeshift camp, Gail darting off into the brush to bring back their packs from where they had hidden them.

  "What's that?" Michael said, looking up towards the leaf obscured sky.

  "Sounds like a helicopter."

  28: Drug Processing Facility, Laguna Del Tigre, Guatemala

  Carlos looked down at the facility as his pilot flew over to the landing pad that was on top of the warehouse and living quarters. He could see that there were less guards than normal manning the front gate, and there were only three in the four towers. Also the bus used to move workers between Flores and the work site was missing.

  Jorge had told him he'd sent the worst of the injured into town, to see a real doctor and to be treated in a real hospital. Seeing as they were all torn up from an animal attack, Carlos wasn't worried that there would be all that many questions asked. Or at least he wouldn't have to float any extra bribes.

  He waited for the pilot to shut down the motor, and once things were secured he got out and opening the hatch on the roof he climbed down the ladder into the upstairs apartments where Doctor Huffman and Jorge lived, as well as their assistants and for now, Herman.

  "Carlos!" Huffman said, coming out of his room and shaking hands with him, while smiling. "I'm so glad that you are here! Maybe now I can get the power I need to continue my experiments!"

  Carlos nodded, "Jorge tells me that it will be perhaps two days before he can restore full power, but I'm here to see what can be done before that. How are you progressing?"

  Huffman scowled a little, "I have the test growth chambers all set up, and the samples are doing quite well. If the notes I received are correct, we should be able to move most of them into the full size growth vessels in the three unused labs next week. However..." Huffman said, voice trailing off.

  "However, what?" Carlos asked.

  "The chemical compounds that we're looking for, the ones that make up the drug. We're not seeing them in other than trace amounts. The notes you gave me do not seem to cover the method used to stimulate production. I have tried several of the more standard techniques, but I have yet to find the one that will produce the desired results."

  Carlos sighed to himself, but didn't let his reaction show to the Doctor.

  "Anything else?"

  "Well, without the proper amounts of the compounds to work from, I haven't been able to produce any of the drug. There appears to be some information from that procedure missing as well. But I'm not worried, once I have enough to experiment with, I'm sure I can figure it out."

  Carlos nodded, "How long will it take you?"

  Huffman shrugged, "I can't say for sure. We still have several promising techniques to try, if those don't work, well we'll just have to go through the full range of experiments. If I could see what was left out of the notes that I have, I could start turning out useful amounts of the drug for testing within a month."

  "Are you sure it will do what they claim?" Carlos asked.

  Huffman shrugged again, "The initial results are promising, Carlos, and the compounds we're getting, while small, are performing as claimed. As to how well it works?" Huffman smiled then, and Carlos noticed that his smile was about as friendly as many of Herman's were, "Well, it's not like we're lacking in test subjects, now is it?"

  Carlos nodded and smiled, yes, around here, he could find all of the test subjects he wanted, willing or otherwise.

  "I will see about getting my hands on the rest of the information for you, Doctor," Carlos smiled.

  "It would be a great help," Huffman said.

  Carlos thought about that, and nodded. Surely there was a researcher he could bribe, or maybe he could just kidnap someone with the knowledge he needed? He'd already committed one major act of terrorism on American soil this month, why not a second one? Besides, the sooner he started producing, the sooner he could build his own little personal army. If this worked as well as Smith had promised, then maybe it would be Carlos running the show, rather than Manuel.

  Carlos nodded again, "I will see what I can do."

  "Thank you, Carlos," Huffman said, smiling happily.

  "Now, I have other things to attend to, have you seen Herman around?"

  Carlos noticed the slight look of distaste on Huffman's face.

  "No, I haven't seen him since this morning."

  "Well, then I will ask Jorge, thank you, Doctor."

  It took Carlos ten minutes to track down Jorge, and when he finally found him, the man was hard at work overseeing the men working in the labs. Herman had told Carlos that they'd moved half of the security forces into the buildings to work on producing product. What he hadn't told Carlos was how much supervision the men obviously required.

  Carlos had to admit, Jorge was no slacker. Then again, Jorge knew the price of failure probably better than most of the people who worked for Carlos.

  "Carlos!" Jorge said, coming up to him as soon as he saw he was there. "I did not know you were coming!"

  "I wanted to see how things were for myself," Carlos told him. "I can see you've got things well in hand however."

  Jorge shook his head and sighed heavily, "Not as well as I would like, Carlos. I need more men, either guards or experienced workers. I'm not comfortable with so few men standing guard outside, and while the men won't complain about double shifts now, eventually they will.

  "And then there is Doctor Huffman! I can't divert power from the main production lines until I have those generators replaced. Maybe if my mechanic hadn't been shot, I could get one of them back up and running before the replacements arrive," Jorge shook his head again, "I asked my man Juan to see if he could find a good diesel mechanic, or at least find some generators to bring back from Flores after taking the men there."

  "I'm sure he will find something," Carlos said, happy to see that Jorge at least understood what was important.

  "Where is Herman? I did not see him in his room."

  "He went out hunting," Jorge looked at his watch, "about five hours ago. I sent one of my men with him, Samuel. He's an experienced tracker. I'm surprised he hasn't come back yet. What did the guard by the gate say?"

  "I haven't asked them yet," Carlos said. "I'll go and check with them now." Carlos looked around at the men who were taking the leaves and running them through the grinders. It was by no means the orderly operation that Carlos normally saw when he came here.

  "You stay here and keep an eye on them; it looks like you have your hands full already."

  Jorge nodded and looking at a couple of the men who seemed to be having issues with dumping the shredded leaves into one of the mixers where they were treated with solvents, he quickly moved off to deal with them, yelling and shouting as he did.

  Carlos left him to it and went outside, heading off to the front gates. There was only one guard there, but at least the gate was closed. He could see there were several men working in the mess hall, preparing food for the workers, and they were all armed. With the mess hall so close to the gate, Jorge must have figured the men inside could back up the gate guard, should any trouble appear.

  Not that it was likely this far into the park. Carlos kept everyone well bribed and he hadn't had a problem here in many a year. He just wondered what had drawn the cats here, now, and if they would be coming back. It would not surprise him if the cats had been sneaking in for a while and preying on the leftovers in the trash and had just finally been caught in the act. Probably they had been spooked, maybe even shot at, and that was when all hell broke loose.

  He'd have to talk to Jorge about it later.

  "Sir!" The guard at the gate said, when Carlos walked up to him, setting his rifle aside and giving a small bow. "How can I help you, Sir?"

  "Please, call me Carlos. It's Juan, isn't it?" Carlos said. He had no idea what the man's name was, he'd never seen him before. But Juan was always a good guess, and if he got it wrong, they still thought that he did know who they were, was just having a little trouble remembering.

  "
Yes Sir!" the man said and beamed.

  "Juan, has Herman returned yet?"

  "No, Sir. I mean, no, Carlos. But I heard several gunshots about twenty minutes ago. So I would expect him and Sam to return soon."

  "Gun shots?" Carlos asked, concerned.

  "Oh, it wasn't like a firefight, Carlos, it was single shots, most of them were a minute apart. I bet they shot a couple of those pumas and are now probably skinning them!"

  Carlos nodded, "Okay, Juan. When Herman comes back, tell him I would like to see him."

  "Yes, Sir, Carlos!" Juan said, and picking his rifle back up, he returned to watching the road.

  Carlos turned and walked towards the two barracks buildings. As long as he was going to have to wait for Herman's return, he might as well go look in on the wounded. It would help morale if they thought he cared about their welfare. But between the wounded in the barracks and the ones sent to town for treatment that was almost half of the men here; it took nearly thirty men just to run the cocaine production line, the four labs in which they did the new designer drugs that Huffman had developed were mostly automated, and Huffman's assistants ran those.

  The injured men were split between the two barracks, and all seemed in good spirits, though all of them were bandaged up heavily and the 'doctor' that worked here treating them had all of them on antibiotics for the claw wounds. Carlos noted that the usual guns that could be found lying around were now nowhere to be seen, Jorge having locked all of the men's guns up in the small armory in the warehouse.

  By the time dinner came, Carlos was starting to wonder just what had happened to Herman. It was after six and it was starting to get dark out, and there had been no sign of him, or the other man, Samuel. The bus had come back from the hospital, the driver had been somewhat successful and had found several generators, and while they were not as powerful as the ones that had been broken, it looked like they would supply enough power for Huffman to use at least some of his equipment.

  "So, Doctor," Carlos was saying to Huffman as they walked from his lab back to their quarters above the warehouse, "will that be enough to keep you busy, until the new generators arrive?"